The Glass Menagerie: Meanwhile, at Beacon
by Person With Many Aliases
Summary: Because having the biggest bunch of miscreants and psychopaths Vale has ever seen, stay at an Hunting Academy was an intelligent decision. Gag scenes using the cast of "The Glass Menagerie" by the author.
1. Night One

Gag scenes written for fun, from the _Glass Menagerie_ thread on Spacebattles. Archived here for posterity.

 _RWBY_ series property of Roosterteeth.

Original Characters property of author Person With Many Aliases.

* * *

The moment Velvet's team entered their dorm room, they didn't even bother examining anything. They simply zeroed in on the four beds laid out perfectly at the opposite end of the room.

Whatever luggage they had was unceremoniously dumped to the ground, and four women fell face first onto the beds in unison, followed by a harmony of agonized and elated sighs of relief.

"I literally haven't slept in a real bed for days," Velvet groaned, burying her face in the pillow. She could feel her body finally lose the tension it had never quite gotten rid of since the first day she arrived in Vale.

Bell had sat up in her bed, and crossed her legs. With her hands on her hips, Bell twisted her body at the waist a few times, eliciting a few sharp cracks, "Hm. Hopefully we can keep the real beds for longer."

Velvet was almost ready to drift off into insensate unconsciousness, except the stabbing noise of squeaking mattress roused her. Velvet rose up and frowned two beds over at Phthalo giggling maniacally as she did some sort of strange flopping imitation of a worm or a beached fish, bouncing off her new bed.

"Nyah-ha-ha-ha! These springs ain't been broken in yet!" Phthalo laughed, before noticing the existence of her team and grinned, "Congrats, girls! We've made it to the starting line! Tomorrow is orientation! Then bad-assery! This calls for booze! Zaffy, let's go find booze! There ought to be some idiot thinking they can sneak it in!"

"Ah gad."

The half slurred curse caught everyone's attention, and they looked over at their final member. Zaffre was currently a bizarre still life, lying on her back on the bed. She was stock straight, cloak spilling out underneath her, legs pressed together and her arms bent at the elbows so that they shot upwards into the air, ending in clawed fingers. Her face was screwed with an expression that only caused the other three to garner even more interest as they weren't even sure what their eldest teammate was trying to convey with scrunched nose.

"What's wrong, Zaffre?" Velvet tentatively asked.

"...I can't move." The scarred woman finally admitted.

"You can't move? What? Are you sick? Are you in pain?" The faunus perked up, worry quickly worked up as she inspected Zaffre. She never really considered it until now, but the woman had been homeless for quite a while. Given her apparent previous injuries, there was no telling how weak her internals were, whether her organs were healthy, or her immune system. She wasn't sure if having an Aura accounted for such things, but it would be terrible if their first evening of quiet had to be cut short by dangerous stomach pain or otherwise.

 _I'm going to have to see if I can get her a physical later._

"No, it's..." Zaffre's cheeks twitched as she tried to explain herself, "What the hell am I lying on?"

That question threw Velvet off, and she looked at what the old soldier was lying on. It hadn't changed in the past minute. "...A bed?"

Zaffre looked back incredulously, "Is this what they call a bed? Holy shit, this isn't a water bed or whatever, is it? How the hell do you people sleep in this thing?"

Velvet was only more confused, "It's... it's a bed? I don't understand."

"What? You don't feel yourself sinking though the floor in this thing? How do people get off this thing? I'm like... grrggh..."

Zaffre made to almost roll over, but the moment her side dug deeper into the mattress, a flash of panic flickered across the woman's face and she immediately returned to lying prone on her back, "It's like goddamn quicksand! I can't shift my weight or I'm going through the floor!"

Bell had this unblinking stare that Velvet suspected meant dumbfounded incredulity. Phthalo was more obvious as she tried to strangle the laughter in her mouth. It didn't amuse Zaffre in the least.

"Fuck you! You try sleeping on this fucking death trap, you fairy!"

"Snghk- _PA-HA-HA!_ It's a 'death trap'!" Phthalo laughed uncontrollably, pushing her face into Bell's solid shoulder to stay upright.

"You are so dead when I get out of this," Zaffre growled, which only made Phthalo fall back, fighting for air as she kept laughing.

Velvet shook her head, "You're going to need to get off that bed, first. I can help you if you need it."

"No, I don't need help," Zaffre retorted, while remaining exactly where she was.

"...Bell, let's get Zaffre out. Grab her ankles."

The silver haired huntress shrugged, "Okay."

Zaffre's mortification was complete from her toes to her facial expression while the faunus and her partner walked over, grabbed the drifter by her feet and slowly dragged her stiff body off the bed. They had hoped that at some point the woman would relax enough to sidle off the bed herself, but in the end, Velvet and Bell just kept pulling the human log until she unceremoniously fell off the bed with a loud thump.

Phthalo leaned over the edge of the bed, "You okay, darling?"

A sour blue figure loomed up from between the beds and planted a fist in Phthalo's stomach, making her bend in two dramatically from the blow, before falling back on the bed.

"Oof-! Worth it!" Phthalo wheezed, and rolled over, sniggering and clutching her stomach.

"Fuck this, I'm sleeping on the floor. At least I know it won't try to swallow me alive. Stupid mattresses," Zaffre snarled, grabbing the blankets and pillow off her nominally selected bed and marching for the opposite corner of the room.

Velvet hoped that that would be the end of it while she returned to flop onto her bed. She _finally_ had a bed. All she needed was at least one night's worth of complete sleep.

"What the hell is this pillow made of!? Helium!?"

Velvet put her own pillow over her head.


	2. Carmageddon

"Wheeee! Faster Ren! Bell! Swing faster!"

"Trying."

"Nora, you really need to be more careful!" Ren shouted upwards, before throwing all his body weight backwards to pull on a rope.

"...and, I read in the rules that anything a student constructs that's taller than 6 feet needs to have a safety inspection by a professor..." Velvet clarified, albeit sheepishly.

Given the hour of the day, a "professor" somehow transformed into Glynda Goodwitch herself descending from on high when she heard of disturbances on campus. She now alternated at looking at Velvet, and looking at the contraption Nora, Ren, and Bell were manipulating. All the while the remainder of JNPR and RWBY were nearby, having tagged along when Bell asked Nora for help, and now stared with varying types of reaction.

Ruby and Yang were naturally entranced by the possibilities, Pyrrha was curious, Jaune seemed nauseous, Blake was ambivalent but amused, and Weiss looked distinctly unimpressed.

"Well, I was inspecting a few weapons-" Glynda noticed Velvet trying and failing to not look at Pyrrha and Ruby, "-and I wanted to get some really definite answers on weapon balance. But I find I work best by starting big and then miniaturizing it. It's starting from the basics."

The deputy headmistress could where she was coming from, but apparently Velvet's definition of "basics" differed from others. The normal man might have looked into swinging a few blunted dummy weapons. Velvet, after hunting for spare parts, had located a 25 foot high tensile steel pole, threaded one end through a swivel and attached it to a counterweight, apparently fashioned out of an abandoned engine block, likely filled with more miscellaneous heavy junk. Ropes were connected to on two sides so that their ends were connected to the counterweight and pole. With two operators, such as Bell Mithril and Lie Ren, to stand on counterweight and pull on the ropes, the pole became a metronome that swung to and fro. Depending on how long and how hard they were pushing the counterweight, the pole could go near horizontal.

"Are you sure you're not tired of this Nora?"

"Never! It's like an reverse trapeze!"

"I see. The fact it's mounted to a truck?" Glynda asked, noting how the contraption was adjoined to a set of struts that were welded onto the back of an older transport truck, though only recognizable by the driver's cab, since the aforementioned struts were directly fixed to the completely exposed frame and suspension behind it.

"Well, I checked with the garage staff and they said they never found a use for that vehicle ever since its flatbed was destroyed, and I needed something to transport it. It's, um, not safe to test indoors."

Given the way Nora was currently at the top of the metronome after climbing her way there, squealing with glee as she was swung in one extreme direction to another, that fact was patently obvious.

Behind her, Glynda could hear their teammates give their own opinions on the metronome truck.

"That is so cool." Ruby sighed, "I wonder if it'll work even better with my Semblance... or our weapons!"

"It might have uses in the field," Pyrrha idly considered, "A mobile look out point would be good in any situation."

"Nngguaah," Jaune agreed, "But is all that swinging... necessary...?"

"Definitely," Blake countered, "I can see it being used in boarding actions between moving vehicles. Often the biggest danger is getting sideswiped while climbing on, but with something like that, you can simply swing on board."

"You can't be serious," Weiss retorted, with a disbelieving shake of her head, "This is just another of Velvet's over-engineered science experiments. The idea it has any practical use-

Nora at that point had swooped in low, grinned, and snaked her arms under Weiss' to grab hold of her.

"Don't knock it till you've tried it Weiiiiiisss!"

The metronome lifted, hauling Nora and a flailing Weiss upward to begin the ride again.

"Come on! You gotta feel the adrenaline!"

"Nora! Put me down, I'm going to fall!"

Velvet looked up, sighed, and decided if it wasn't her team, it wasn't her problem. Glynda agreed for the most part, steadfastly ignoring the two girls above their heads.

"As long as you continue testing outside, I don't foresee any problems with this. Though I suggest you work with more people for safety."

"Of course, Miss Goodwitch."

"Speaking of which, I'm afraid of saying this, but I'm surprised Dartmouth didn't assist you in this project. This seems to be up her alley."

Velvet shrugged, "I thought so too, but Phthalo apparently was inspired and wanted to try something on her own-"

Classical opera ripped through the air, discordant, disharmonious, and badly balanced. Filling in for the bass was the deep throaty growl of a large engine hauling a heavy load. The noise reverberated through the outer atrium, momentarily spooking the hunters present.

Then Phthalo's voice, amplified by a microphone, came through.

 **"Genuflect, grrrrlllound walkaaaaahs! The greatest musical innovation since the Achieve Men has arrived! For I am the scaaalesss of Science! Conductor of the Poop Train! Take me away, driver! To the land where the sun is always shining and the air smells like warm root beer!"  
**  
The beast trundled into view. Glynda choked.

It was nominally another transport truck, save it was absolutely festooned with speakers and amplifiers of all shapes and sizes, pointed in all directions so that Berdi's _Dust's Wrath_ was slammed out in all directions, shaking the air. The cargo crane on the truck was erected, and from it, a multitude of bungee cords were hung from the arm and hook. On the other end of the cords was a harness that Phthalo was using to half hang, half stand above the roof of the cabin. A headset was wrapped around her ears and her fist was punched forward as if she were flying through the air. In reality though, the truck was laboriously moving forward an impressive five miles per hour, most of its horsepower wasted on trying to haul every speaker in Beacon on its bed.

Yang blinked, "Woah, when's the show?"

"That's weird music. Who made it?" Ruby wondered.

Merely hearing that question made Blake grimace, "I'll show you later. I promise."

Glynda meanwhile broke ahead of the hunters, stepped forward and jabbed her riding crop at the approaching truck. There was a faint purple glimmer, before the vehicle ground to a halt, the engine groaning in protest. The moment it stopped, Phthalo yelped and bounced forward several feet before the bungee cords pulled her back under the crane. Meanwhile, the driver showed a surprising amount of common sense and stopped jamming on the gas pedal.

Zaffre poked her head out of the driver's side window and appeared relieved at the sight of Glynda marching up to her.

"Oh thank god you're here, Wonder Woman. I need more adult supervision for this idiot," The janitor said, pointing upwards.

"I should have known you would be party to this insanity," Glynda accused, "Why aren't you keeping Dartmouth in check?"

"Trust me, this is the most "control" you'll get when Phthalo's being... yeah," Zaffre said, shrugging.

" _This_ is the best you can do?"

"This is the best you'll _get_. You really want to see her being corralled by other Profs? Like Pete? James? _Barty_?"

Glynda's mouth twitched, the only admission that the janitor might have a point. She looked up, and spoke with a tone that could melt stone and freeze nitrogen.

 _"Phthalo. Shamrock. Dartmouth."  
_  
From above, Phthalo leaned over, using the bungee cords to keep her horizontal while she grinned downward. Turning the microphone off, she spoke.

"Hey, sexy lady! Summoned by sonorous love beats?"

Glynda ignored that. "What... am I looking at? _"_

"A revolution in the usage of music in today's modern battlefield! Atlas is gonna love this shit to death! I was thinking to myself, 'sure we got this giant army somewhere, blowin' shit up, spreading freedom, but what if they're feeling depressed? What if they need a way to communicate with one another?' So I created this wagon! By playing music of varying tempos, we can coordinate the speed of moving units with audio cues! No need to thank me! I'm already printing out some guides and possible playlists to mail to the Kingdoms."

"Phthalo, we already have radios."

"...Well, what if the radios aren't working? They could use one of these!"

"If the situation came about where an army lost radio contact with one another, they'd be having problems much more serious to begin with!"

Glynda stopped mid-lecture and realized she had more apparent questions.

"Where did you get all these speakers from, anyways?"

Phthalo hummed, trying to recall, "Some storage room. 1138?"

"One-one...!? Phthalo, equipment from there are only to be used for special occasions!"

The hanging girl scoffed, "Oh, come on, Wonder Woman. It's not like anyone was using them."

"They're needed for the Beacon Dance!"

"Oh, good. That means I'm doing my job and making sure they're still working by the time it comes!"

The deputy headmistress massaged the bridge of her nose.

"Anyways, I wasn't finished with my demonstration! I also added a jack for instruments so musicians like _yours truly_ could do their own jigs if everyone can't agree on a playlist to bring to battle. It's sorta like a musical executive office! Unfortunately, I couldn't find an electric guitar around here, and Playmate was busy with her thingus, so I couldn't ask her to build me one either."

"What a shame. If that's all, then perhaps-"

"So I had to settle for an acoustic. I'm not big on it, but it still works!"

Phthalo then reached back and pulled out the wooden instrument in question. The butt of the guitar already had a black wire jammed into its side, connecting it to the stack of amps. Even then, its sight was familiar enough that Jaune pointed and blurted out loud.

"That's my guitar!"

"Sorry! Can't hear your over the sound of _Resources Officer!_ Sound, heh heh... Speaking of which, I found these lyric drafts with your 'tar. You don't mind if I use it for an example, yeah?"

"Lyrics...?" Jaune muttered, before horror dawned on him, "Oh no... no no no-"

"I think it goes best with C-flat..." Phthalo muttered, tuning a string. Turning her mic back on, she strummed a few tentative notes and then broke out into a folk jig. Then she started singing loudly, and with the amplifiers at full power, the song echoed across the campus.

For everyone to hear. _Everyone_.

 **"WEISS SCHNEEEEEEE/ PLEASE ACCOMPANY MEEEEEEE!/ TO THE DANCE... ON PARENTHESES LOOK UP DATE LATER PARENTHESEEEEEEES!"  
**  
Phthalo's musical ability also revealed previously unknown combat functions on the vehicle, as every word belted out, Jaune's face appeared to change a number of colors, from red to blue to green as his incomplete lyrics were serenaded. Pyrrha looked at her partner, staring wide eyed. Blake looked ready to vomit, while even Ruby winced at the song.

Yang couldn't help but laugh, though. Laugh out loud and slap Jaune on the back.

Glynda though, wasn't paying attention, as she fixed the janitor with a deadly glare.

"Zaffre St. Patrick. Return this abomination to the garage. _Now."_

"Phthalo's gonna raise shit every inch of the way back, you know. The reason I wheeled it out of here was because she wouldn't shut up."

"I'll make sure you're compensated. Just get it out of here!"

"Right, boss." Zaffre muttered and slid back inside the truck, raising the window before gunning the engine and bringing the tower of amps around painfully slow, doing little to stop Phthalo's singing.

Ruby meanwhile, brought comfortingly rubbed Jaune's shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry, Jaune! At least everyone thinks it's the singer asking Weiss out, not you. Right Weiss?"

"I'd rather get run over by that thing... than entertain the thought!" Weiss screamed downwards over the guitar, while she was still held aloft by Nora.

 **"YOUR EYES LIKE GEEEMS! / GLITTERING IN THE SNOOOOW! / BE BY MY SIIIIIIDE! / PARENTHESES INSERT RHYME HERE PARENTHESEEEEEEES!"  
**  
"I'm never leaving my dorm ever again," Jaune merely muttered.

"You ever get the feeling you're the least crazy person in your team?" Ren asked Bell.

"It's relative." Bell answered. Seeing how happy Nora was showing Weiss the metronome, she put a little more force in the next swing.

Meanwhile, Jaune fainted dead away when he saw a jet of flame erupt from the neck of the Guitar as Phthalo started a solo.


	3. Too Many Cooks

Velvet set the large pot down in front of the rest of RWBY and JNPR with a grin, "No strings attached, really! We just made too much for ourselves and we needed to give it to _someone_ before the day was out. Dig in!"

So the eight hunters started spooning out the stew and ate. And quickly scrambled for seconds. There was much gushing to be had.

"Oooh, this is so gooood...!" Ruby sighed, "The biscuits soaked up the flavour, but they aren't soggy!"

"Are these... roast beef chunks?" Weiss asked, mildly skeptical as she held up spoonful, "I'm surprised this worked..."

"It's quite an unusual combination of ingredients," Pyrrha idly noted, "Corn, chicken, green peppers, chili... is that onion I taste?"

"You're over thinking everything! It's good!" Nora decisively butted in, before turning to her partner, "It's just plain good, right, Ren?"

"It's a bit on the heavy side for me."

"Oh, heavy my butt, Ren," Yang jibbed, "If you didn't have this, you'd be be a bag of bones."

"So... did you cook this or something?" Jaune asked, "I didn't know you could cook."

Blake had one eye on an e-book on her scroll (she wouldn't chance something on paper next to saucy foods), and asked in a completely innocent tone, "Favouring domesticity for your prospective girlfriends?"

Yang snickered. Pyrrha swallowed something wrong and spent a minute coughing into her bowel, while Jaune patted her back with concern.

"Dude, that's not cool, Blake. Look, you shocked my partner."

Pyrrha was too busy wheezing to really comment on the matter.

Velvet wondered if she should suspect something in all that teasing, but decided to play nice and simply answer Jaune's question, "Well, I know how to cook a few snacks, but this sort of dish is kind of beyond me. My friends actually made this."

Everyone stopped eating at that moment. Ruby was staring bug eyed at Velvet, spoon full of her next mouthful suspending in front of her open mouth.

"Woah, wait a second. Your whole team?" Yang asked. The idea apparently was having trouble entering her mind, "We're talking about Zaffre, who hasn't seen a microwave in years, Phthalo, who thinks she can just imagine being full, and Bell, who can eat the discount leftovers from the cafeteria?"

Velvet frowned, "Well... yes? Zaffre's good with roasting, smoking, salting, and jams. Phthalo's good with frying and baking, and Bell knows how to make stews, soups, and seafood."

Yang's expression slackened with a strange realization, "...Huh. You know what, it doesn't sound that weird when you think about it like that."

"Bell is a really outdoors type," Ren added, "Still, I wouldn't think your friends could collaborate."

Velvet's grin faltered for a moment.

* * *

"HEY!" Zaffre jabbed a finger at Bell, who was leaning suspiciously close to a dish, while her hand was straying by a kitchen knife, "Get the fuck away from the beef! I found it, I bought it, I'm gonna cook it, you're _not_ gonna eat it."

"...Chili's not thick enough."

Earlier in the day, the other three fourths of the Killer Queens had been in the floor kitchen. Every floor of the dorm wing of Beacon was ridiculously well furnished. Setting aside the inordinately comfortable lounges, the kitchens were very well equipped for all sorts of culinary projects. It let students learn a little something about self sufficiency. With the frequent shuttles to Vale below, there were ingredients and snacks always being brought in by the kids.

Zaffre shot a dirty look at the large metal pot of meat sauce that Bell had been presiding over.

"Well that's your problem if you didn't get enough ingredients, you're not shaving my roast."

Bell took a suspicious look at the spice rubbed slab of meat, "You're cooking it wrong. Too much oil. The outside will be black when it's done."

"Maybe I _want_ it that way?"

"That's dumb."

"Well, fuck you. It's my beef. I'm cooking it the way I want it. I haven't had one with the full Scarborough Fair treatment in years, and by god, if I have to get through you to have the roast I want-"

"Hey, can you two stop quit posturing?" Phthalo shouted from below, crouched as she was in front of a running oven, eyeballing a tray of baking dough intently, "My scones are gonna absorb your bad vibes."

Phthalo was insistent about the vibes. At times she would quote how microwaves and heat waves could be interfered with by electromagnetic pulses given off by agitated people. In an attempt to protect her food, the chemist was wearing oven mitts and the pinkest, frilliest apron that could be found.

"Oh please, you don't have a say in the cooking process, Fairy," Zaffre scoffed, "You make the literal easiest dish in the world. It's just flour and eggs and shit in an oven."

"Oh, speak for yourself. You're planning on burning meat. You've _almost_ moved beyond the prehistoric era, Zogg, daughter of Thagg."

"Thanks, Zaffre."

Zaffre spluttered and turned to see Bell calmly dropping a handful of beef chunks into the stew, while her prepped beef was now a few centimetres shorter.

There was a minute of silence, in reverence for the oncoming tidal wave.

Zaffre glared, "Oh, motherfucker, it's on now."

With that, the older woman spied container full of pre-sliced green pepper, possibly intended for someone else's meal. She grabbed a fistful of it and proceeded to hurl it into the pot of chili, sending rivulets of splashing in all directions.

Bell stared at the peppers sinking into the meat sauce, "The chili's crunchy now..."

"You got no one to blame but yourself."

Bell nodded, "I'll fix it."

She grabbed the kitchen knife with a meaningful eye on the remaining slab of beef.

"Oh no you don't-" Zaffre began, and quickly snatched a tenderizing mallet, and pointed it at Bell. The silver haired huntress held her knife at the ready, while her eyes began to glow.

There was a momentary pause, right before Bell took a swing at the beef, which Zaffre countered with an underhand swipe, knocking the knife back. Then the two quickly devolved into a dizzying fray of cooking utensils, knife clashing with mallet.

"Crap! The two of you keep away from my babies, you buncha nutbars-" Phthalo whined, and discretely pulled her baking tray out of the oven, intent on crawling away from the melee. Phthalo only managed three steps before Zaffre's sudden lunge at Bell kicked the tray of cooling scones into the air.

Everyone paused watched in macabre curiosity as the pastries soared through the air, then fell. Some of it fell onto the ground. Most of it also fell into the pot, and sank slowly into the growing mixture.

Phthlao stood up, staring at her work, and then turned to the other two.

"...Right, it's a three way. DIE!"

Phthalo shrieked and launched her oven-mitten palm into Zaffre's face, knocking her into Bell. As the two staggered, Phthalo found another container full of shredded chicken, and threw it into the pot.

"Stop it!" Bell growled.

"My scones have died because of you! REVENGE!"

Phthalo batted away the steak knife thrown at her, but couldn't dodge in time as Zaffre tackled her to the ground, leaving the beef exposed to Bell's wrath.

* * *

Some time later, Velvet opened the door to enter the kitchen.

"Girls, are you in here? Didn't one of you need to have your notes revised before..."

She stopped. Mostly because she wasn't sure if she was in the kitchen. Cutlery, pots, pans, and ingredients were strewn everywhere, as if the room had exploded. In the center of the mess, her teammates were all clinging to each other. Zaffre was wrapped around Bell in some sort of hold, wrestling for control of a table knife that her partner, eyes blazing, was trying to bring towards a shredded slab of meat, which lay inexplicably on a muffin tray on the floor. Bell would have garnered more success fighting for the knife, if her other hand wasn't gripping Phthalo by the ankle, as she tried to crawl towards a bowel of vegetables that had tumbled out of the open refrigerator door.

"Drop it, Bell. DROP IT!"

"Apologize to the scones! They were pure and innocent before you touched them!"

"You ruined my chili."

"Fuck off your chili! There's only a third of my roast left, you little shit!"

"Your resistance only makes this celery crispier!"

Velvet shut the door, and spent several seconds staring at its white surface as she listened to the struggling on the other side. Finally, she rebooted, shook her head, and walked off.

 _Right. I guess I better go to the library. Hopefully Blake or Pyrrha's there._

All the while, a pot bubbled on innocently.

* * *

"...Well, you could say it was a labour of love, all the same," Velvet admitted, and decided to pour herself a serving.


End file.
